The Steel Shark

Chapter 14

Vivian wished she were anywhere but at a fancy gala at the museum. She’d been here on field trips, and she’d loved the exhibits of fish and polar bears and crabs, and the life-sized blue whale hanging from the ceiling. If she remembered correctly, it was ninety-four feet long and weighed twenty-one thousand pounds.

But the vast room felt too much like the ocean. Dappled blue light shone down on the whale and lit up partygoers. It reminded her of her time in the submarine.

She did a quick circuit to get a feel for her surroundings. Blue Dreams had brought in a catering company and set up buffet tables in the corners. Waiters circulated through the crowd carrying silver trays loaded with Champagne flutes. A platform had been erected underneath the whale’s tail and a blue curtain hung at the back. That was the makeshift stage where Tesla would be speaking later, assuming he showed up.

A woman in a black dress that looked like it was made from garbage bags sneered at Vivian. She sneered back. She knew she looked like a poor relation in her black pants and jacket and fancy white shirt. Her sister, Lucy, would have been able to list her sartorial shortcomings in detail, but this woman had no right to.

People’s eyes slid right past her. Not a bad quality in a bodyguard, even a one-armed one. A warm hand touched her elbow, and she turned to her partner for the evening, Dirk Norbye. An old friend from the Army, he was currently in the NYPD but often moonlighted as a bodyguard for Tesla. He looked fine in a tailored blue suit that probably cost a month’s salary.

“Did you see Tesla?” she asked. Dirk had looked on the second floor, and she’d taken the first floor.

“Nope,” he said. “But I did spot a guy you might want to talk to.”

He pointed, and she knocked down his pointing hand because it looked too obvious. The hottest guy she’d seen in a long time stood near the buffet. He had curly black hair and pecs she’d like to bounce a quarter off. The errant lock that had fallen out of his wetsuit hood arched above his forehead. The diver from the police harbor unit who had rescued her and Tesla.

“Wishing he’d had a reason for mouth-to-mouth?” Dirk asked.

“He is way too hot to be single.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dirk said.

“Would I?” she asked. “Tell me details.”

The man headed toward them.

“Hey, Norbye.” He shook Dirk’s hand and turned to her. “You look a lot better than the last time we met.”

He remembered her as a drowned rat. Great. “Thank you.”

“Officer Baxter,” he said.

She cleared her throat. “I’m Sergeant Torres.”

That wasn’t even accurate, since she wasn’t in the Army anymore. Smooth, she thought. Very smooth.

He shook her hand. No wedding ring. Nice eyes, green.

Dirk herded them toward the buffet. Crab cakes, oysters, and who knew what other kinds of seafood were calling his name. She could go a long time without eating seafood again.

“That submarine you were in was quite a mess.” Baxter looked her up and down. “But you look great.”

“I got lucky. Just the arm and a cut on the head.”

“The other guy wasn’t so lucky,” Baxter said.

Dirk had found paradise. He loaded up a plate and disappeared into the crowd. She’d eaten at home. With one arm, she wouldn’t be able to hold a plate to put food on, let alone eat it.

Baxter picked up a plate.

“Were you able to bring up the body?” She moved down the food line next to him. He picked only vegetarian items. Interesting.

“Not me personally, but I was part of the team that went down to get his body.”

She shuddered. “Not sure I ever want to go back.”

“You’ll go back. There’s something enticing about water.” He pointed to her sling. “And even injured, you had nerves of steel when it counted. I’ve done a lot of rescues, and you were the most together person I’ve ever plucked out of the water.”

She shrugged away the compliment. “Did you bring up the submarines?”

“A retrieval isn’t in the budget. Someone will probably turn them into dive destinations. Not a lot of crashed submarines around here.”

“Don’t you need them to determine the cause of the crash?” If they were threatening to charge Tesla with manslaughter, didn’t they need to do a thorough investigation first? Unless the charges had been a bluff to get more information out of him. You never knew with cops.

“Pictures are plenty. Looked like you guys smashed into each other.” Behind his head, a sperm whale and a giant squid battled to the death in a diorama. She sympathized.

“We were smashed into,” she said. “You can’t believe those two tiny subs could do that kind of damage to each other, even in a head-on collision.”

“I can believe a lot of things.” He put two oysters on his plate. “But not everything.”

“You don’t believe my statement?” Her arm throbbed, and she knew that meant she was getting too upset, but she wasn’t going to back down.

“Here’s what I know.” Baxter looked certain in what he knew. “Something went wrong down there. You broke your arm, the bodyguard died, and your driver was high as a kite when we fished him out.”

“Mr. Tesla wasn’t driving in that condition. As I made clear in my statement.”

Baxter held up his free hand in a pacifying gesture. “I’m here for the food and the entertainment.”

A flash of silver caught her eye from across the room. Maeve. She and Tesla were easy to recognize — Tesla looking suave in a tuxedo and his tiny girlfriend in her super-fashionable dress and silver hair. They were turning heads all the way down the hall.

“I’m here to work, Sergeant Baxter. But thank you for coming to our assistance.”

She turned her back on Baxter and his gorgeous green eyes. He’d gotten a lot less attractive after he’d said he didn’t believe her. Funny how that worked.